Statements of the Penn Street Chapel Hands, 1931

Horfield United Reformed Church, church, Bristol, Bristol

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Plate I. Horfield United Reformed Church, BristolLinda Bailey · CC BY-SA 2.0

I.Background & History

Whitefield's Tabernacle stood in Penn Street, Bristol, and opened in 1753 for the followers of George Whitefield. The building later passed into the keeping of the congregation now styled Horfield United Reformed Church, and the Society's information on its fabric is slight.

The church lies within the old heart of Bristol, among the sites of the castle, the friaries and the meeting houses of the dissenting churches. The ground thereabouts has been built upon, cleared and built again for many centuries.

The Society records only what is certain. The place is a nonconformist church of the eighteenth-century revival, standing in a district that is crowded with older foundations.

Source: Horfield United Reformed Church, Bristol, Wikipedia

II.The Entity

The Tooth-Warder of Penn Street

A tall figure in a labourer's moleskin and a preacher's black bands, which stands where the pulpit once stood, wholly without a head. Where the neck should end there is only a smooth, closed knot of plaster-grey flesh, and it is said to tilt toward whoever speaks, as though hearing through the collar. Witnesses agree that it makes a dry rattling as it walks, like a handful of teeth shaken in a tin.

Assessment of Peril

☠☠☠☠☠

Class IV: Malignant

It has singled out every man who touched the opened wall, and none of the four has lived out the year. It is drawn to the voices of those who speak of it.

III.The Account

Inside a half-demolished chapel, a mason in a flat cap and a labourer stand with lamps before a gaping hollow in a plaster wall behind a pulpit. Within the hollow, a ring of small pale teeth sits on a slate scratched with a hand whose fingers are reversed. Their shadows stretch long across the floor toward the empty pews, and something in the dark of the hollow seems to lean out. — Fig. I. THE WALL IS OPENED, AND THE TEETH LOOK UP AT THE MASONS!

The Society took five statements in the autumn of 1931 from persons employed upon repairs to the old Tabernacle. They do not agree in every particular, and the Secretary has not sought to make them agree. Mr. Josiah Pratt, foreman mason, said that a plaster wall behind the pulpit was opened on a Tuesday, in the afternoon, to cure a damp. Within it, in a hollow the size of a bread oven, lay a child's jaw and a quantity of human teeth, set in a ring upon a slate. Pratt said that the slate bore a mark like a hand with the fingers reversed. He ordered the teeth swept into a sack, and the sack was put out with the rubbish.

A woman in a nightcap and shawl sits upright in an iron bed in a bare keeper's room, candle guttering, staring at the half-open door. In the black gap of the doorway the tall silhouette of a figure in a labourer's coat stands very close, its head bent sideways as though listening to her breathing. Nothing is visible where its head should be. — Fig. II. IT STOPPED BY HER BED, AND LISTENED FOR HER BREATH!

The labourer Edwin Gage said it was a Wednesday, and that the teeth numbered thirty-two exactly, and that he had not swept them but carried them to the vestry in his cap. He said the chapel keeper, Mrs. Hannah Voke, complained that night of a rattling in the gallery. Mrs. Voke, in her own statement, said she had complained of nothing, that she heard a footfall and not a rattle, and that it crossed the floor slowly from the pulpit to the door and stopped, as though someone stood close to her bed listening for her breath. Both agreed that the sound returned every night, a little nearer to wherever she lay.

IV.Recorded Manifestations

Testimony of Witnesses

V.Rite of Expulsion

Difficulty: Inadvisable

Requisites

The Rite

Caution.

VI.Hauntings of the Surrounding District

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New Bridewell Tower · Former Gaol · 0.3 miles
Unknown, unclassified entity. Particulars withheld pending investigation.
Castlemead · Castle · a few paces
Unknown, unclassified entity. Particulars withheld pending investigation.
Blackfriars · Abbey · a few paces
Unknown, unclassified entity. Particulars withheld pending investigation.
Bristol Castle · Castle · 0.1 miles
Unknown, unclassified entity. Particulars withheld pending investigation.
St James' Presbyterian Church of England · Ruins · 0.3 miles
Unknown, unclassified entity. Particulars withheld pending investigation.
Sack Friary · Abbey · 0.3 miles
Unknown, unclassified entity. Particulars withheld pending investigation.
Temple Church · Ruins · 0.4 miles
Unknown, unclassified entity. Particulars withheld pending investigation.
Greyfriars · Abbey · 0.4 miles
Unknown, unclassified entity. Particulars withheld pending investigation.
Greyfriars · Abbey · 0.4 miles
Unknown, unclassified entity. Particulars withheld pending investigation.
John Wesley's New Room · Church · 0.2 miles
Unknown, unclassified entity. Particulars withheld pending investigation.
Central Quaker Meeting House · Church · 0.2 miles
Unknown, unclassified entity. Particulars withheld pending investigation.
St Philip and St Jacob · Church · 0.2 miles
Unknown, unclassified entity. Particulars withheld pending investigation.
St Peter's Hospital · Hospital · 0.2 miles
Unknown, unclassified entity. Particulars withheld pending investigation.
Broadmead Baptist Church · Church · 0.2 miles
Unknown, unclassified entity. Particulars withheld pending investigation.
Kingsley Hall · Manor House · 0.2 miles
Unknown, unclassified entity. Particulars withheld pending investigation.